Dell XPS 400 USB keyboard and mouse not working

I am having a problem with the USB keyboard and mouse. Simply they are not responding. However, I do not have PS/2 connectors. The desktop is frozen. I am willing to reformat the hard drive but I do not know how. Any feedback is welcome.

I've read it might have something to do with the lithium-ion battery, is this true? I have removed it, waited for 24hrs but still did not reset. Please help !!!

Thank you for responding. I have plugged in my flash drive in the front ports but there is no response. As far as the BIOS, I do not recall the settings however, all ports were working before so I assume the settings remained.

I also have a Dell XPS 400 and lost my mouse and keyboard, so I know the frustration you're having here. In my case the cause was spyware had attached itself to my USB driver to log my keystrokes -- when I attempted to remove the spyware it corrupted the usb drivers. If your problem is the same, then you don't need to reinstall the whole system, only the usb drivers. The problem is that you don't have 'human interface' with the computer, and the Dell XPS has no PS2 ports. Your BIOS usb drivers should run the keyboard and mouse though, until the corrupted windows drivers take over.

Can you access the root of the C:\ drive over a network? (No, didn't share the c root either, but if you did you could replace the drivers from another computer.) If not, you'll need a boot disk that loads USB drivers. Unfortunately, normal DOS boot disks can't read our SATA drives, so you'll need a boot disk that can load SATA drivers. Can you run the Dell diagnostic CD -- it should boot from it and check to make sure your hardware is okay. I wound up downloading a temporary copy of Active@ Boot Disk from NTFS.com -- I had another computer, so I could burn this to a CD and boot from it. This allowed me to get enough control to replace my USB drivers, and now I'm fine. Well, my computer is, anyway. The software comes in full functional limited time mode, so if you're budget constrained this won't cost you anything, although I recommend buying it ($80) if it works for you. You can try other recover boot disks -- SPOTMAU works on the XPS400, but I coundn't get the UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD) or UBCD for windows to work on the XPS.

Your USB drivers will be in C:\Windows\Sytem32 and C:\Windows\Sytem32\drivers. I had four drivers corrupted (I could only tell by reading the properties on the drivers -- the original Microsoft drivers had all the fields filled in, the corrupted ones were blank). I don't know which USB files are critical or not, so I basically replaced everything starting with USB. I can't remember which ones were corrupted, but I think they were usbport.sys, usbhub.sys,and usbuhci.sys, and one other. Hope this helps. Hope the novel doesn't exceed TechSpot's bandwidth. Good luck, and remember -- Computers are here to help us. No, really.

Although I could be wrong, I don't see this as a driver problem because the BIOS has its own basic drivers separate from Windows drivers and neither appear to be working. Since there are no PS/2 ports, USB support in the BIOS is likely enabled by default. Since the USB keyboard won't even work to get into the BIOS, I'm thinking USB hardware problem. I would check the physical connection from the motherboard to the USB ports to make sure they didn't come loose.

[chowdah]I am having the same problem. I even installed another usb card and still nothing happens. and if you used the dell disk did that work?[/QUOTE]

If you installed another usb card and it still doesn't work even in BIOS, I would think you've got more serious problems -- probably motherboard related. Once windows loads, it will load its own drivers and if they are corrupted, they won't work even with the new hardware. The dell disk worked in the sense that it ran -- it did its diagnostics and verified that the hardware was copaceptic -- but it did not fix the problem. This problem was not what it was made for.

With regards to mailpup's concern -- sorry if I didn't make that clear, but yes, my system worked in BIOS mode, so I knew the hardware was working. One problem with my machine though was that if you just hit F2 once when prompted, it would boot normally as if the keyboard wasn't working. Don't know why, some sort of timing issue I guess. I solved that by repeatedly pressing F2 from the BIOS prompt until it brought up a bios screen. I think that is a new feature from Dell to check your blood pressure or exercise your finger or something.

So, in short, if your USB keyboard doesn't respond even during BIOS, suspect hardware issues, possibly motherboard, USB card, or cable related. If it works during boot up but fails upon loading windows, check your drivers.

I just picked my Dell XPS 400 up from the GeekSquad for the same problem, we replaced the power supply, placed new usb ports (also the DVD read was only reading CD's and not DVDs) etc etc... We never did get it working. Personally, I'm DONE with Dell... any suggestions for next time? I'm thinking laptop and we're gamers and on a budget if anyone has any tips...

I just overloaded my usb pory on a Dell xps 400 and keyboard and mouse froze on me. I went inside the computer and below the quarter size battery, then below the long ribbon plug , then below the 4 plastic squares there is a small blue plastic cover on 2 small prongs with the 3rd prong showing, you need to take the blue cover and move it over so the middle and right prong is covered . Count to 15 and return to the left and middle covered again. This is called jumping , also while the computer is unplugged push in the start button for 10 sec, this will dump the reserved power out. You will need to fix clock after this..Hope this helps